Newsletters from Mongolia

Our staff in Mongolia regularly put together a newsletter which is sent to volunteers working in Mongolia at the time, those signed up to join a project in Mongolia and to previous volunteers. The newsletters contain information about the country and our projects, stories written by volunteers, advice on what to expect when volunteering abroad in Mongolia and much more. If you're considering overseas voluntary work the newsletters are a great way to gain a better idea of what to expect.

Mongolia had never crossed my mind until I found myself with a plane ticket and a visa in my hands. The truth is that no one I know has been to Mongolia and I didn't have any idea about this country before coming.

My name is Laura and I am a 44 year old woman from the Netherlands. I really was looking for a change in my life and specially something that will cahnge my way of thinking about life. I would also like to help other people.

I'm a Belgian midwifery student and, ever since I started my studies, I have wanted to do an internship abroad. However, it has been a real battle to be able to do this. A battle filled with research, essays, motivation letters and even an interview in front of a panel of three teachers.

44 year old Juliana Rangel, a French-Brazilian running her own legal consultancy and translation firm in the Netherlands, had always wanted to volunteer abroad. After working in various roles in the field of law for over 11 years, Juliana decided to give something back.

“Why do you want to go to Mongolia, of all places?” waseveryone question when I told them that I would spend five weeks there. Well, why did I want to go there? Since I had watched the film “The Cave of The Yellow Dog” by Byambasuren Davaa, I had been fascinated by the vast landscapes and the Nomad culture that differs so much from my own.

I learned the value of having family, friends and a group of good people supporting you; sometimes not all kids have that necessarily. I also learned the value of education, because they were so excited and eager to learn English.

In summer of the 2006, Patricia Sexton (38), from New York, seized the opportunity to follow her dream of becoming a journalist when she embarked on a 3 month volunteer adventure with the Projects Abroad Journalism Project in Mongolia.

My name is Madeleine Carney and I am a 3rd year medical student undertaking a month long medical elective project at Railway Central Hospital, Ulaanbaatar. I was drawn to Mongolia as a destination for volunteering because of a previous visit I had made during the summer months to the Aimag of Khovsgol.

You would have to be here or have been here to fully understand what it is that I am looking at and experiencing. For those who have been here, I hope my words will act as a brief reminder and for those who haven‟t, please read on and imagine.

"Children with disabilities have the power to show that the barriers which they have to overcome are not as big as the barriers society puts in their way" Katarína Turčeková, Mother of a child with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus. Slovakia

I knew that my month long Nomad Project adventure had truly begun when I looked out the car window and there were no longer any signs of city life. It was a good feeling to be leaving behind the craziness of Ulaan-baatar and trading it in for the peaceful Mongolian countryside - the many modern buildings would be replaced by sparsely located traditional gers and the urban city dwellers by livestock and nomads.

I’ve wanted to visit Mongolia for as long as I can remember. Maybe something I read, a pro-gramme I saw on TV, but however the seed was planted, something stuck. I’ve also wanted to do some long term volunteering for a while so when the opportunity arose I took the plunge and combined the two!

Eighteen-year-old Joseph Suk from East Setauket, New York, has always been interested in the medical profession. Eager to seize the opportunity of observing doctors during surgical procedures and to experience a different culture and country, Joseph traveled to Mongolia to volunteer at Pro-jects Abroad’s 2-week special medicine program for high school students.

One thing I’ve discovered while in Mongolia, is that at age 55, I’d be retiring. What? For me, that’s only 5 years away and small change. I’m just getting started on the “good stuff” of my career - finishing up a second degree in comparative literature with a focus in semantics analysis, and heading towards PhD work with a focus in global health policy.

20-year-old Claudia Leuch, from Brugg in Switzerland, wanted to do something different and unique over her gap year. “After searching online I found Projects Abroad; I looked through the website and stumbled upon the Nomad Project in Mongolia and was really fascinated by it.”

It all started on New Year’s Eve with my wish to discover a foreign country through humanitarian work. My first idea was to teach my own mother lan-guage, French, in an Asian country. I also contacted Projects Abroad after some research on the Internet.

22-year-old Stefani Thomsen, an Interna-tional Communication and Multimedia major from Aarhus University in Denmark, wanted to complete her internship in a media and communication company somewhere far from Denmark.

Mongolia, before I left people would ask me “why are you going to Mongolia Richard, Mongo-lia!?” I’d tell them that it was an exotic country and culture, with a long and awesome history, beautiful mountains and plains and snow (which for an Australian is something extremely special), what I didn’t tell them is that I really wanted to ride a horse though the country side and pretend I was an awesome adventurer (yes, I did do this and it was great, maybe not for the horse but I had a great time).

In Ulaanbaatar the main tourist attraction is Sukhbaatar Square and the center for most cultural experiences. Here, the government house is located with the famous statue of Chingis Khan, as wells as the red horse statue in the middle of the square overlooking the city.